Doomsday Wonderland

Puppeteer laughed smugly at Lin Sanjiu’s accusation. “You should be grateful that I gave you a chance to fill your stomach.” Then, he turned away.

Although Lin Sanjiu had not told Puppeteer that the packet of chips contained air-dried human organs, it seemed to her that he learned that through the Soul of Film Crew. That was the only explanation of why he would describe such a nasty ability to Lin Sanjiu and have her gobble down a mouthful of the potato chip man’s leg.

In order not to let his excellent mood be disrupted by Lin Sanjiu’s dry heaving, Puppeteer once again shut down the Soul of Film Crew unidirectionally.

He waited at the sideline until the chicken onion-flavored chips stopped quivering. Then, he kicked her down from the shelf again. “Chop-chop and get your job done. There’s a lot more to do, and we still need to do a crosscheck later.”

Puppeteer’s wishy-washy talk gave Lin Sanjiu the pip. Lin Sanjiu lay on the floor, swearing that one day she must get back at him for this.

She scanned all the items displayed on one side of the shelf and then Puppeteer would do a crosscheck with the other side of the shelf. This was by far the best idea both of them could come up with after going through a not-so-successful discussion. This method depended heavily on luck, but they had no other choice. Even a bright person such as Nüwa would also need every detail to make the decision. Right now, they were completely shrouded in the dark. The Veda had deleted the explanation of the rules, leaving them no other alternative but to learn the mechanism of this Pocket Dimension themselves through the hard way.

This time, their operation was somewhat successful since no unexpected problem cropped up midway.

When Lin Sanjiu was once again carried to the shelf by the same talkative yet polite rope, she caught Puppeteer mumbling under his breath, “How strange.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It doesn’t match.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.” Puppeteer’s voice turned grim. “None of the items displayed on both shelves are the same. Flavors, date, brands… there’s always something different.”

Lin Sanjiu was stunned for a reasonable amount of time before realization slowly came to her. This was incredibly far from what they had envisioned.

It certainly was no accident to get caught by the other side of the shelf. It was a pivotal step that they must go through to clear the Pocket Dimension. This was the conclusion the two not-too-clever posthumans came to after going through ten minutes of discussion. Hence, based on that premise, both of them decided to crosscheck the items on both sides. If they could figure out the distribution pattern of the items on both sides, then perhaps they might be able to find an opening.

“Then… What is the relationship between the two sides of the shelves?” Lin Sanjiu frowned virtually and fell into deep thought. “If we didn’t fall on the floor, the potato chip man would not have shown up to eat us. But why would we have gotten caught?”

“Can’t you keep your mouth shut when you’re thinking?” Even at this moment, Puppeteer did not forgo his attempt to make a sarcastic remark. “You stay here. I’m going down to take a look.”

Hardly had his words settled down when two questions surfaced in Lin Sanjiu’s mind. ‘What is there to see down there? And, what flavor has he become?’

Unfortunately, there was no way she could get an answer for either of the questions. Suddenly, Puppeteer grunted while remaining still. Lin Sanjiu waited, unsure of what to do. Just when she was going to ask what was going on, Puppeteer began to talk again. His voice sounded cold and filled with rage. “So, this how it is.”

Then, he sneered. “I cannot move my body. Try and see if you can move or not.”

Stunned, Lin Sanjiu tried to move her body. Although she could not maneuver her body very well after turning into a packet of chips, she could at least shift a little if she put in some effort. To her horror, she could not move at all now. Worst still, her vision had become narrower. Her heart turned cold at the late realization. They had been too dependent on their Special Item.

“What happened?”

At this moment, both of them thought about the same thing at the same time. Although neither of them said it out loud, the few seconds worth of shock was enough to send Lin Sanjiu into a frenzy. Her heart raced like a galloping bison running from its predator.

She glanced over at the rack. Each layer was crowded with different kinds of snacks. Every one of them was once human, but why would they not try to do anything and save themselves?

Why did they just sit quietly and obediently on the shelves, waiting to be consumed by the potato chip man?

“Because all of them cannot move anymore,” Lin Sanjiu squeezed the words out through her raw throat, “Just like any other snack.”

“That explains why this is a two-sided rack.” Puppeteer harrumphed, his voice growing deeper. “We must hurry up and find a way to turn back into humans.”

Lin Sanjiu shifted her gaze over to the lane and saw two packets of chips lying there. She had taken down one of them while the other was knocked down by Puppeteer when he was pulled to this side of the shelf. It appeared to Lin Sanjiu that the shelf was following the rules “one pit, one radish”. In other words, there could only be one packet of chips in a hole. If an empty spot appeared, the hand would randomly grab a victim to fill the gap. And there was no way of escaping from it.

In the beginning, they still retained some maneuverability. It had only been half an hour, and their ability to move had already left them.

“This must be it,” Lin Sanjiu muttered, “The shelf on that side is like a store. Each human who’s turned into a packet of chips will first stay on the other side for some time. They’ll be left on the shelves until they completely lose their mobility.”

Whenever somebody tried to escape and caused some noises, the potato chip man would appear. The objective of this mechanism was pretty obvious: to eliminate any form of resistance in their buds. After the human had wholly turned into a packet of chips, he would be transferred to this side of the shelf. This explained why the items on both shelves were different, as they were different humans, to begin with.

Perhaps some of them were still persistent enough to retain a bit of their mobility. That was why the rooster on the packaging could turn its head, albeit slightly, when Lin Sanjiu picked it up.

Puppeteer sneered cynically. His voice, which was as light as fumes, drifted into Lin Sanjiu’s ears, “Our consciousness is still intact. Do you know what that means? Every packet of chips is looking at us. Every action, every move, anything we do falls right into their line of sight, but they can’t speak or move.”

Once Lin Sanjiu thought about every item in front of her having a pair of eyes, a chill crept down her spine. “We have to leave as soon as possible!”

There would be only one end for them if they did not leave now: turn into a packet of chips. Be that as it may, how should they turn back to human and leave?

“How is it possible for us to pinpoint the correct item out of this mountain of chips? It’s like asking us to search for a needle in a haystack!” Lin Sanjiu forced herself to calm down as she combed through her thoughts. “Furthermore, we don’t even know what the criteria for the ‘correct chips’ is.”

“We only have to shove the correct chips onto the lane, right?”

“Wait. What?” Lin Sanjiu was stunned. She looked over to the lane, and there was nothing on top of it aside from the shopping bucket that she dropped earlier on.

If there was something she did not welcome, that would be having some kind of unspoken consensus with Puppeteer. However, in the next instant, when they both began to speak, it appeared that both Puppeteer and she were on the same page now.

Puppeteer let out a whimper, as he did not want to say a single word to Lin Sanjiu. The well-mannered rope shot out from the shelf, slaloming rapidly like a streak of lightning in between the chips and leaving nothing but its afterimages in Lin Sanjiu’s eyes. Under its master’s guidance, the rope swooped down tons of chips and other snacks. Packet, cans, and boxed items fell to the floor one after another, creating a continuous series of thuds in the air.

“H—How come it’s suddenly moving so fast? What did you say to it?”

“I told it that if it still moved like a snail, I’d leave it alone here,” Puppeteer said softly.

Nevertheless, the rope was not able to escape its fate from being caught by the hand.

Everything was pristine and clear at this point. After anything came down from the shelves, a hole would appear. Regardless of any life form, be it a human or a rope, no one would get a chance to escape from the hand. The rope was flexible and quick, no doubt. It zoomed past level after level of shelves in the blink of an eye, but it never thought this was the reason for its downfall.

Countless hands shot out from the deeper part of the shelf like a madly blossoming tree. Several hands grasped the rope at the same time, and before Lin Sanjiu could express her shock, she heard Puppeteer grunt, and the well-mannered rope was dragged into the void behind the shelf.

Lin Sanjiu suddenly remembered the tone the rope used when it said to her, “Let’s talk next time,” but she said nothing at last. Puppeteer would not care even if it was the life of a human being, let alone a Special Item, which was something he never lacked. He probably had it all set up to send the rope to its death.

Lin Sanjiu then took over Puppeteer’s job. She muttered an apology under her breath before sending out her Higher Consciousness to finish the task the rope was unable to complete. A plethora of snacks rained down on the lane, followed by the appearance of the hands from the back of the shelf. The hands grasped something in the air. It seemed like they had not caught anything, but in fact, they had seized a small portion of her Higher Consciousness. When that happened, Lin Sanjiu would retract her Higher Consciousness back with a flick of her mind, leaving only the teeniest bit of Higher Consciousness in their possession while the rest returned to her like how all rivers eventually flowed back to the vast sea.

Soon, there was nothing left in the shelves except for the dense hands that kept coming out of the dark.

Lin Sanjiu and Puppeteer sat on the shelf, surrounded by a dense crowd of hands as thick as huckleberries. None of them were giving up. Every time they retreated into the darkness, they would shoot out even faster the next time. These hands danced, waved, and thrashed about in the air, making the shelf look like a giant octopus playing with its tentacles.

The next step should be pushing all the snacks out of the lane. However, neither Lin Sanjiu nor Puppeteer had the guts to make a move.

The answer must be lying amongst the mountain of snacks. The moment the correct snack was swept out from the lane, both of them would return to their human form and fall from the shelves.

It was just that before they could touch the ground, those hands would grab them and shove them into the shelf once more.